Why do words change to ie at the end?

Question

Like for example lolly to lollies,

strawberry to strawberries - why not leave it as it was but just add the s to make it plural?? Like lollys, strawberrys?? Who invented that and why? Wouldn´t it make it easier for people to learn if they were left.

Answer 1

I am setting myself up here to be shot down by people who know better, but as far as I know the 'ie' ending of berrie pre-dates the y ending of berry.

'Lolly' ( in the sense I am assuming you mean ) is a contraction of lollipop. The etymology of 'lollipop' is a question, if not a thesis and a paper at a conference, of itself.

English spelling wasn't standardised (or standardized) until the advent of mass education in the late 19th century ( in Britain ) - although I will allow the influence of Samuel Jonson (or Sam. Johnson).

Williem Sacksper would have wept.

Sorry to have got carried away on my hobby-horse, although of course hob is originally ......

Etymology, don't you just love it!  

Answer 2

it's simply the rule. when we want to form the plural form of a noun we generally put -s at the end of the word, girl- girls.

exception 1: all nouns ending in

-s ( bus)

-ss (dress)

-ch (match)

-sh (crash)

-o (tomato)

-x (box)

form their plural by adding -es. dress-dresses etc.

nouns that end in -y and before -y there is a consonant form the plurar by adding -ies ( baby-babies etc).

nouns ending in -y and before -y there is a vowel ( a,e,i,o,u,), follow the general rule.  toy-toys  boy-boys

Answer 3

I before E except after C

Answer 4

Cos thats the way it is honey !

It makes people use their brains a bit more - so not a bad thing

Answer 5

It's an interesting question and I wish I knew the answer, but I have a theory.

Long ago English was a more conjugated language, verbs and nouns had many different forms depending upon context.  Likely plurals were represented differently in different situations and the change of 'y' to 'ies' just stuck.